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GoEngineer Cloud PLM as a Service
Key Takeaways
- Companies of all sizes must effectively manage their vital intellectual property, their product designs, across their lifecycle.
- Many companies use ad hoc data management approaches while others implemented on-premises data and process management solutions to help manage their files, bills of material (BOMs), and support configuration management.
- Cloud-based product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions offer more flexibility in licensing, reduce in-house support requirements, and can be expanded to more users and additional capabilities as business needs demand.
- Based on Dassault Systèmes expansive 3DEXPERIENCE platform, GoEngineer’s Cloud PLM Program is designed to provide rapid time-to-value for implementations ranging up to tens to thousands of users.
- GoEngineer’s long experience selling and implementing both on-premises and cloud-hosted PLM solutions help customers of all sizes reap the benefits of cloud-based solutions to support their PLM workloads.
Introduction
Since digital technologies were routinely applied to the product lifecycle in the 1960s, companies had to determine how best to manage and leverage the information created using those digital tools. Often, these approaches were ad hoc, using local storage and office automation tools as they emerged in the 1980s and, more recently, cloud technologies such as Dropbox. But the cloud has much more to offer than just ad hoc support. This commentary focuses on how GoEngineer, an organization with a long history supporting industrial product lifecycle management (PLM) strategies both on-premises and in the cloud, is leveraging their knowledge and cloud-based solutions from their partner Dassault Systèmes in a new cloud-native offering that can support companies of all sizes.[1]
Effectively Managing Your Vital Intellectual Property
Most companies use digital technologies to support their business and its operations. Product-focused companies use technologies like commercial mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) solutions to design and test their product ideas. They may only make parts to feed a multi-tier value chain or entire products that they conceive, design, virtually test, and sell. With the current emphasis on smart, connected products, many companies also rely on electronic CAD (ECAD) solutions to design their electrical and electronic components. Beyond engineering solutions, a lot of product knowledge resides in various types of Microsoft Office files. For example, by some accounts, Microsoft Excel is the world's most commonly used Bill of Material (BOM) management solution.
A company’s collection of digital tools shares one characteristic: they help create a lot of data to be managed. Collectively, these digital assets are the intellectual property essential to meeting the company’s objectives. Companies of all sizes must effectively manage their vital intellectual property and product designs across their lifecycle. This is even more important today because more value chains are requiring data-sharing to support digital thread and digital transformation initiatives. Even lower tier suppliers face more demand for digital information.
What is the state of data management practice in product companies today? Based on CIMdata research and our consulting experience, far too many companies still rely on ad hoc approaches to data management. One might think smaller companies would be more likely to rely on personal hard drives or network drives, email communication, and file management solutions like Microsoft SharePoint or Dropbox. Sadly, these techniques are used by large firms as well, often to support departments or function-based technology silos, like quality or supply chain management. Larger companies built through acquisition face the opposite problem. They do not lack technology to support data and process management but have too much of it. Many have multiple on-premises solutions to help manage their files, bills of material, and support configuration management. Our industrial clients seek our services, in part, because they are looking for a better way forward from their status quo.
Many companies see the cloud as that way forward. Cloud-based solutions offer more flexibility in licensing, reduce in-house support requirements, and can be expanded easily and quickly to support more users and additional capabilities as business needs demand. Just a few years ago, the question in our industrial engagements was, “Why cloud?” Those pitching cloud solutions had to convince their colleagues to shift away from on-premises solutions, which had been the norm for decades. CIMdata believes that the COVID-19 pandemic sped the pace of cloud adoption as companies pivoted to relying on cloud solutions to quickly support remote working. Today, the question our clients ask is, “Why not cloud?” Companies are in business to deliver products and services, not to become experts in information technology. For many businesses and use cases, cloud-based solutions just make more sense.
GoEngineer, a leading software and services company with long experience in both on-premises and cloud data and process management, worked with their partner, Dassault Systèmes, a long-time market leader in CIMdata’s global PLM market research, to create a new offering useful for manufacturing companies of all sizes.
GoEngineer’s Cloud SaaS Offering
GoEngineer has a long history of supporting industrial companies to better manage their product data and lifecycle processes and is a leading Dassault Systèmes partner across their full manufacturing portfolio. In fact, GoEngineer has been Dassault Systèmes leading reseller for five straight years. GoEngineer worked with Dassault Systèmes to develop their offering, leveraging a set of pre-defined capabilities for PLM that meet the needs of most customers in a variety of industries. Based on Dassault Systèmes expansive 3DEXPERIENCE platform, GoEngineer’s packaged cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) software and services offering is designed to provide rapid time-to-value for implementations ranging from tens to thousands of users. Figure 1 highlights key aspects of their offering. Core capabilities include Engineering Item Management, BOM Management, Change Management, as well as Configuration Management. Best practices gleaned from Dassault Systèmes and GoEngineer’s customer implementations are baked in.
Figure 1—GoEngineer’s 3DEXPERIENCE Cloud PDM Package
(Courtesy of GoEngineer)
GoEngineer believes this offering can meet customers where they are and get them started on their cloud journey. Some customers may be new to data and process management, while others are looking to replace their legacy environment with a cloud-based solution. GoEngineer has a long history of helping customers implement PDM and PLM solutions and migrating customers from one solution to another. The company also has hosting experience and can be your point of contact for any cloud services issues.
GoEngineer’s implementation approach targets 12- to 30-week migrations using their pre-built tools and configurators, offered at a fixed price. Their streamlined process is designed to minimize downtime and ensure a rapid time-to-value. For this offering, the ratio of software and implementation services costs is often close to 1-1, a very different ratio than CIMdata sees in typical on-premises implementations where services costing 10x software costs are not uncommon. Of course, every implementation has “set-up” costs regardless of user count, but GoEngineer expects future additional services costs to be required only to implement new capabilities.
A great benefit of cloud-based solutions is the ability for an organization to expand at their own pace to meet business needs. Many customers add more seats of existing capabilities as more stakeholders want to access the system. Since GoEngineer built their solution on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, customers also have ready access to the broad Dassault Systèmes manufacturing portfolio. GoEngineer has direct experience and existing customers using a broad set of Dassault Systèmes offerings. For example, many customers often need to use a range of design tools to support their value chain relationships. This makes the availability of needed CAD integrations a key differentiator for platform selection. GoEngineer and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform support a wide range of leading offerings. Supported MCAD solutions include AutoCAD, CATIA (V5), 3DEXPERIENCE CATIA, Creo Parametric, DraftSight, Inventor, NX, Solid Edge, and SOLIDWORKS. Supported electronic computer-aided design (ECAD) solutions include Altium Designer, Allegro, and OrCAD. GoEngineer resells, implements, and supports many other Dassault Systèmes offerings, including engineering simulation and digital manufacturing, all leveraging the same platform.
Once a company is on the platform, it can access the many advanced capabilities to expand their implementation as business needs change. With the cloud, organizations can access the breadth of the offerings without having to worry about on-premises “baggage” (such as cost, management time, IT expense). GoEngineer has proven experience across Dassault Systèmes’ broad portfolio, which they can leverage that experience to help customers evolve and address new business challenges.
With this new cloud-based offering, GoEngineer and Dassault Systèmes have created an effective migration path for companies to reap the potential benefits their collective technology and offer expertise that can help deliver.
Conclusion
Since the 1960s, companies have had to determine how best to manage and leverage the information created using their digital tools. Today, company approaches range from ad hoc using home-grown or commercial solutions, to broad implementations of commercial software with thousands of users.
Based on CIMdata’s industrial consulting and market research, companies are increasingly turning to the cloud to help support their lifecycle processes. GoEngineer worked with their partner, Dassault Systèmes, to bring cloud PLM capabilities to companies of all sizes. For one fixed price, customers start with core capabilities like Engineering Item Management, BOM Management, Change Management, and Configuration Management. The implementation process is constructed using best practices gleaned from Dassault Systèmes’ and GoEngineer’s customer implementations. Because GoEngineer built their cloud solution on top of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, customers have ready access to the breadth of the Dassault Systèmes manufacturing portfolio. GoEngineer resells and implements much of this portfolio, and so can help at each step along the way.
What can customers expect? Benefits include rapid time-to-value, use of best practice business processes, and rigorous data management, all while getting vital intellectual property in a single source of truth. If your company is new to data and process management or looking to replace your legacy environment with a cloud-based solution, this GoEngineer offering will help you smooth out the first steps on your cloud journey. Their long history of helping customers implement PDM and PLM solutions and migrating customers from one solution to another makes them a partner of choice to help you start strong and continue to evolve your implementation to meet future business needs. For more information, please contact GoEngineer.
